There is no way Temple City High School football coach Mike McFarland is calling changes to the upcoming season desperate.

“We’ve done a lot of work retooling the whole thing,” the third-year Rams coach said. “When you go 1-9, you have to make changes. You have to do things differently. You just can’t sit back let it rip.”

Temple City’s lone win was a 56-0 Rio Hondo League victory over Blair in last season’s finale. The Rams have gone 10-20-1 in the last three seasons.

McFarland has changed the offense and the defense. On offense, the Rams will run the option. On defense, they will have an eight-man front.

“We want to look like Georgia Tech, maybe,” McFarland said of the offense.

It was not a matter of change just for change’s sake or to re-charge the offense, which was outscored by an average of 21.8 points last season. The Rams were held to 13 or fewer points in five games.

“They just want to be successful,” McFarland said. “As long as they see themselves put in a position to be successful, they’re fine with that. It’s about featuring the kids we’ve got and put them in a situation to be successful.

“We don’t have a program with the kind of athletes at this point to feature a spread offense and shuck it around. But we do have some good football players and this is a good way to feature them.”

Anthony Valencia, who ended the season as the Rams’ starting quarterback after starting at wide receiver, will run the ball. He will be throwing a lot of pitchouts to Chris Reed.

He threw 23 passes and rushed for 108 yards last year. He also caught 31 passes for 588 yards and six touchdowns. Reed rushed for 45 yards on seven carries.

“I expect everybody to get on the same page,” Valencia said. “We expect a closer bond. Our line is small, but we have a lot of speed. We’re going to take advantage of our speed.

“For us, it’s been all about tailoring what we do strategically around the kids that we have instead of trying to plug them into a system that does not work.”

Seniors Valencia and Reed will help lead a defense that also will feature juniors Nick Koneko and Nasir Baniboni and includes 13 returnees.

“We’re trying to simplify what we do and put kids in a better position to be successful,” McFarland said. “We’re gong to try to take the guess work out for the kids before the snap and let them play fast. We’ll let our defensive linemen get in the gaps and play more aggressive with our linebackers. It lets them be more aggressive from snap to finish.

“We were probably asking our kids to do too much reading and making decisions before the ball was snapped. We’re going to try to limit things and let our kids play football.”

Reed will play middle linebacker.

“This allows our kids to play faster,” McFarland said. “You play fast because you are confident in what you are doing and you play fast because there is no guess work. When you ask the kids to do too much, you cannot play fast, even if you are fast.